Softphone

ABSTRACT

A remote agent call center is functional by providing a softphone and agent bridge that allows maintaining an open telephone line to the agent&#39;s phone with or without an incoming call being connected. Incoming calls are merged into the agent bridge to allow the agent to conference with the incoming call. The softphone provides call control to allow the agent to transfer, terminate, hold, record, or the like the active call.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to remotely or virtually operated callcenters.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

There is a growing trend in the call center industry to support virtualor remote agents. The benefits of virtual or remote agents include theability to attract higher quality operators, reduced operating andfacility costs, access to more potential operators as the operator is nolonger tied to a geographic location, better disaster recovery andsystem redundancy, and the like. The benefits of remote access are beingimplemented in many large entities for more than call center operation.For example, the Federal Government and many state governments haveintroduced legislation to encourage telecommuting and in some cases havechanged policy to require a certain percent of employees to telecommute.

The trends towards more remote access will likely increase in the comingyears with pressures to bring services back to the United States andpressures from increasing fuel prices and the like. Unfortunately,existing infrastructure in the field is inadequate to support theincrease in remote access. For example, the infrastructure for remote orvirtual call center operations is inefficient, of limited scalability,and costly.

Thus it would be advantageous to develop an improved infrastructure tosupport remote access.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

To attain the advantages and in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention a remote agent call center is provided. The remote agent callcenter includes a softphone, a telephony switch, an agent telephone, anIVR, and an agent bridge. The agent workstation is connected to thesoftphone, typically via an Internet connection. The softphone isconnected to the telephony switch and the agent bridge. The agenttelephone is also connected to the agent bridge. The agent bridge isconnected to the switch as well. The IVR receives an initial call fromthe agent and transfers the agent telephone to the agent bridge, suchthat when an incoming call is received at the telephony switch, thetelephone switch can connect the incoming call to the agent using theagent bridge and when the incoming call is disconnected, the connectionto the agent telephone is maintained.

The foregoing and other features, utilities and advantages of theinvention will be apparent from the following more particulardescription of a preferred embodiment of the invention as illustrated inthe accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the presentinvention, and together with the description, serve to explain theprinciples thereof. Like items in the drawings may be referred to usingthe same numerical reference.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a portion of a remote agent callcenter consistent with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a portion of a remote agent callcenter consistent with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 combined;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrative of a method of logging into thesystem of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 5 is a graphical user interface consistent with an embodiment ofthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described withreference to FIGS. 1-5. While the present invention is described withparticular reference to conventional telephony protocols in a virtual orremote call center setting, one of ordinary skill in the art willrecognize the present invention would be useful with other protocols,such as, for example, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and in otherremote access systems, such as, for example, telecommuting, or the like.

If one looked to how traditional call centers operate, one could developa set of rules that define the operation of well run call centers. Thebusiness rules include, for example, that the agent operate in arelatively noise fee environment such that the customer receives highcall quality. The rules also suggest that customer calls should beanswered quickly, efficiently, and reliably by a smart and friendlyagent. Furthermore, the agent must have the ability to resolve thesubject matter of the call and/or be capable of transferring thecustomer to a supervisor or someone who can resolve the subject matter.

To achieve these rules, the present invention was developed with theseveral principles in mind, which include, but are not limited to, thefollowing. First, the system must connect the agent such that the agentcan quickly and efficiently take calls. In other words, the system mustbe set up such that the agent's telephone does not “ring” every time thesystem transfers a customer to the agent. Second, the system must bearranged such that another person in the agent's vicinity cannotaccidentally answer the call from a customer. Third, the agent must beable to acknowledge an incoming customer call to avoid a call beingdelivered to an unavailable agent. Fourth, if the first selected agentis unavailable, the customer must be seamlessly forwarded to anotheragent. Fifth, the system must deliver the call in a timely manner. As arule of thumb, the system was designed to deliver a customer call withinabout 2 to 15 seconds and more preferably about 7 seconds; therefore,the call line should be established prior to needing to deliver a call.While the above are some of the primary reasons for the presentinvention, the present invention also was designed to allow easyscalability so it was designed without the need for special equipment atthe agent's workstation. Moreover, the system was designed to useconventional interconnectivity, such as, for example, common Internetconnections, telephony connections, and the like.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a basic system for remote agent call center 100(“RACC”) is shown. RACC 100 includes an agent workstation 102, asoftphone 104, a control server 106, an interactive voice response(“IVR”) server 108, an agent bridge 110, and a telephony switch 112.Softphone 104 may require an IVR interface 114. The agent workstation102 could be a proprietary workstation, but conventional processors workwell. For example, workstation 102 could be a desktop computer, a laptopcomputer, a server, a mainframe, a blade, or other processing device.The agent connects to softphone 104 through the agent workstation 102over a network connection 120. Network 120 could be any type of network,such as, for example, a LAN, WAN, WLAN, WiFi, Ethernet, Internet, or thelike. If using the Internet, workstation 102 could connect to softphone104 using conventional browsers, such as, for example, MicrosoftExplorer. The softphone 104 communicates with the other systems toprovide the overall call control and system functionality. The agentbridge 110 acts like a phone in a, traditional call center and allowsthe remote agent to mimic a physical presence in a traditional callcenter. The control server 106 is used for call control with thetelephony switch 112. Telephony switch 112 could be a number ofconventional switches such as, for example, an Avaya G3r switch. Thus,for example, using the Avaya G3r switch, control server 106 providesinteraction between the softphone 104 and the proprietary protocols ofthe Avaya G3r switch. The IVR server 108 is used to connect or dial intothe agent bridge 110. While shown as separate units for convenience, itwould be possible to combine parts of RACC 100. Moreover, the termserver should be construed broadly and includes, for example, desktopcomputers, laptop computers, traditional servers, blades, PDAs,mainframe computers, and the like. Further, each of the parts of RACC100 are shown connected by communication links 116. Communication links116 may be one or more conventional communication links including, forexample, cables, fibers, wireless connections, LANs, WANs, WLANs, WiFi,ribbon cables, buses, the Internet, or the like.

FIG. 2 shows the incoming call connection for RACC 100. Incoming call202 generally originates from the telephone system (which is typically aPSTN system, but could be other protocols) shown generically as a voicenetwork 204. The incoming call is routed to telephony switch 112 thatconnects incoming call 202 to agent bridge 110. Agent bridge connectsthe incoming call 202 to a telephone 206 of the remote agent, typicallythrough the same voice network 204. If a VoIP network is used, agentbridge 110 may route the incoming call 202 through a VoIP gateway 208(shown in phantom) to the telephone 206. Agent bridge 110 could routeincoming call 202 over a separate voice network 210 that may or may notuse the same protocols as voice network 204, which may require someprotocol conversions.

Referring to FIG. 3, RACC 100 is shown in more detail. As explainedabove, RACC 100 includes agent workstation 102, connected to softpone104, call control service 106, IVR server 108, which in Figure threeincludes agent bridge 110, and telephony switch 112. Telephony switch112 is connected to voice network 204 to receive incoming call 202, andtelephone 206. Moreover, a protocol converter, such as VoIP gateway 208may be used. A web center 302 and real time monitor 304 may be connectedas well as is explained further below.

Agent 306 logs into system 100 as will be described with reference toFIG. 4 and flowchart 400. First, agent 306 at workstation 102 logs intotelephony switch 112 by first accessing softphone 104 via workstation102, step 402. Accessing softphone 104 may include security provisions,such as, a login procedure, a security module installed at workstation102 that softphone 104 recognizes, or the like. Next, softphone 104provides a phone number to call and pass-code to the agent, step 404.The call in number and pass-code could be pre-assigned or providedrandomly and dynamically by softphone 104. The remote agent dials thecall in number on the telephone 206 and is connected to IVR server 108,step 406. IVR server 108 prompts the remote agent 306 to dial thepass-code, step 408. The agent inputs the pass-code, step 410. Onreceipt of the pass-code, IVR server 108 contacts softphone 104 toverify the pass-code for the particular call in number, step 412. Onconfirmation, IVR server 108 transfers the agent telephone connection toagent bridge 110. Alternatively, softphone 104 could supply thepass-code to IVR server 108 prior to the remote agent dialing in. Oncevalidated, IVR server 108 connects telephone 206 to agent bridge 110. Ifthe pass-code is invalidated, IVR server 108 could disconnect telephone206, prompt agent 306 to redial the pass-code, prompt agent 306 toconfirm the call in number, some combination thereof, or the like.

As mentioned above, agent bridge 110, which is similar to a conferencebridge, allows the system to simulate remote agent 306 being physicallylocated in a traditional call center by providing a continuous, opentelephone line to telephone 206. A control connection 308 maintainedbetween telephone switch 112 and agent bridge 110 is provided forindividual call controls, as will be explained further below. The agentbridge 110 allows telephony switch 112 to merge incoming calls 202 suchthat telephone 206 can be connected to new incoming calls. Agent 306would be alerted to a new call by a tone from agent bridge 110 deliveredto telephone 206 over the continuous, open telephone line to telephone206. Agent bridge 110 also provides mechanisms to merge a recordingdevice 308 to the call when incoming call 202 is merged to provide callrecording capability and quality control.

The control server 106 connects to the telephony switch 112. Sometelephony switches, such as the Avaya switch, use proprietary controls.In those instances, the control server 106 may require libraries and thelike to use a proprietary protocol to perform call control and switchfunctions, such as, for example, calls in queue, completed calls, agentstate changes, and the like). Control server 106 may be integrated intothe softphone 104 as desired. The control server 106 largely passescommands and events between softphone 104, agent bridge 110, andtelephony switch 112. Control server 106 may perform some processing ofthe commands and events, such as, for example, protocol conversions andthe like.

Web center 302 provides a portal for access to systems and applicationsnecessary for the remote agent 306 to access via workstation 102. Webcenter 302 may, for example, provide authentication of the remoteagent's login, provide tools for the agent to launch various programs,such as the softphone connection, and access to customer specificinformation. Real time monitor 304 takes events from other applications,applies various rules, and provides data. Generally the real timemonitor 304 monitors call distribution, tracks agents to manage agentproductivity and use, and provides error information. The web center 302and real time monitor 304 are described herein for completeness, butare, generally known in the art and only described in relation to thesoftphone architecture.

If necessary, softphone 104 includes IVR interface 114. IVR interface114 allows softphone 104 to interface with IVR server 108 and telephonyswitch 112 as necessary by converting the softphone data transferprotocols. IVR interface 114 may control various processes as well.

Softphone 104 provides message-passing middleware. It receives messagesfrom the other components of RACC 100 and disburses tasks, additionalrequests, or provides data in response to the messages. It is envisionedthat Softphone 104 would accept standard communication protocols, suchas, for example, TCP, UDP, and the like. FIG. 5 represents a possibleuser interface 500 residing on a display associated with workstation102. User interface 500 provides information for the agent, but alsoinformation that can be monitored by real time monitor 304. For example,interface 500 includes a plurality of fields 502 and a plurality of toolbuttons 514. Fields 502 may include, for example, a caller ID field 504,an agent state field 506, an in queue field 508, and a call length timer510. Field 512 represents that other, more, or less fields are possible.Tool buttons 514 may include conventional call control buttons, such as,for example, an answer call button 516, a release call button 518, ahold call button 520, a record call button 522, a transfer call button524 (which could be multiple buttons as shown—with warm transfer beingwhere the transferring party speaks to the transferred to party prior totransfer and a cold transfer being a transfer without the transferringparty speaking to the transferred to party prior to transfer), and adial outbound call button 526. These conventional call controls aresupplied by softphone 104 to telephony switch 112 and agent bridge 110to provide conventional call control for incoming call 202. Because thecontrol tool buttons 514 provide conventional controls, althoughcontrolled via the softphone interface instead of traditional IVR ortouch tone control, it will not be explained further herein. The field520 provide information useful for the back office. For example, callerID field 504 provides an indication of what number the caller called.Agent state field 506 provides an indication of the state of an agent,such as, Available, Busy/On Call, Break, After Call Wrap, and the like.The in queue field 510 could provide an indication of whether this groupof agents has calls lined up. Call length field 512 could provide anindication of the time the agent has been on the current call. Other,more, or less fields are possible.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described withreference to an embodiment thereof, it will be understood by thoseskilled in the art that various other changes in the form and detailsmay be made without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention.

We claim:
 1. A system to allow remote agent call centers, the systemcomprising: an agent workstation; a softphone; a telephony switch; anIVR server; an agent telephone; and an agent bridge, wherein the agentworkstation to connect to the softphone, the softphone to connect to thetelephony switch, the agent telephone to connect to the agent bridge,and the agent bridge to connect to the softphone, the telephony switch,and the agent telephone, such that the IVR server transfers the agenttelephone to the agent bridge, such that when an incoming call isreceived at the telephony switch, the telephone switch can connect theincoming call to the agent using the agent bridge and when the incomingcall is disconnected, the connection to the agent telephone ismaintained.